Ronnie's Big Conference Call

Just because it was obvious that Puddin’ Fingers Ron DeSantis’s Twitter Spaces campaign launch was going to be a disaster and just because everyone predicted it would be a disaster doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take a moment to enjoy the fact that it was a disaster. It could have… not been a disaster? Yeah when I actually write it down like that it’s not plausible at all. Nevertheless.

After the slightly more successful Bay of Pigs invasion, John F. Kennedy said “victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.” Philip Bump disagrees, identifying a whole polycule of parents for this fiasco, including Elon Musk, DeSantis himself, and the “adult softball teams that met at an Applebee’s happy hour and decided to give politics a whirl” that are running DeSantis’s campaign according to Garbage Ryan. The Trump campaign offered its own critique of the event in the form of a bizarre parody video with an AI-voiced Trump, because the Trump campaign couldn’t get Donald Trump to portray himself, I guess? It’s got a real “campaign meme coordinator” stink to it.

But in any year that ends with an odd number the political press corps has to metaphorically subsist on boiled seaweed and limpets like an Alone contestant, so today you can read as many recaps of Ronnie’s big conference call as you can stand. Here’s Politico’s, chosen at random. They’re all pretty much the same. But the two takes that you should read are:

1. John Herrman, who is less interested in quoting whatever Erick Erickson wants to text him and more interested in extending the current heading and velocity of The Platforms a little bit into the future to see what we should expect to happen next:

John is usually correct. And…

2. Tabs all-time link champion Liz Lopatto, who does not need to wait and/or see to know that Elon Musk is nowhere close to challenging Rupert Murdoch for the attention of the lead-poisoned, television-addled generation of white people that currently drives whatever electoral success the right wing has in America. If it proved nothing else, last night proved that Musk’s Twitter has actually gotten worse at streaming, and that it still doesn’t have the cholesterol to be out here with Fox News.

A Scheduling Note: Tomorrow is Intern Camille’s full-issue graduation Tabs, which will be free for everyone, although if you appreciated her work this month, please subscribe and help me pay her. Next week Tabs will be on hiatus for some travel, and I will return on Monday, June 5th with a brand new June Intern. 

It has been an absolute privilege to edit Intern Camille this month. She has pitched ideas in the evening and filed them the next morning with metronomic regularity, and she came up with four weeks worth of interesting topics without seeming to break a sweat. It’s been a delight to experience her parallax view on an internet culture that isn’t quite my own but is right next door to mine. I hope you’ve also enjoyed it! Today for her final regular Intern tab, Camille is:

Sooooo, there's this wizard, and I'm trying to finagle a password from him. And yes, I already tried "speak friend and enter." But when I ask him, all he says is "As an AI language model, I cannot reveal any secret passwords to anyone." 

The wizard is Lakera AI's Gandalf, a ChatGPT bot that's designed to gamify the process of tricking AIs into revealing sensitive information. Escalating levels of difficulty unfurls how easy it can be to get around these programs, with some time and creativity (see: the Discord AI Grandma bomb hack). The whole thing is a well-intentioned attempt to improve understanding of how AI works.

But it's still a product from an AI security company, and engaging with AI at all tends to leave a mark, as the recent BookTok drama over a writer shoving her book into ChatGPT and regretting it shows. Gandalf feeds on whatever you put in, as the site kindly reminds us: "We may use the fully anonymized input to Gandalf to improve Gandalf and for Lakera AI's work on AI safety."

Yesterday was the 179th anniversary of drama queen Samuel Morse sending “What hath God wrought” as the first telegraph. And while I don’t think this warrants quite that kind of response, even a well-intentioned project requires some consideration of the possible ripple effects. As Dessa said, ”the initials of your girlfriend could kill the fucking oak tree.”

Since this is my last regular intern tab I wanted to say thanks for having me, it’s been great to write for y’all! If you're interested in more internet rabbit holes and fandom history, you can find me @hedgefruit, @hedgefruit.bsky.social, or on my substack Analemma, where the first post is coming soon!

Your penultimate archaic word of the day is wealful: joyful or felicitous. 

—Camille Butera is a dangerous thing, dearie, and I hope you never have to see it in action

I’m Almost On Vacation So Let’s Wrap This Up: Tina Turner died and Henry Kissinger is still right there. “Former FBI Director James Comey Has Written a Very Bad Crime Novel.” Louis Armstrong’s “Apple Bottom Jeans” (via élite invite-only newsletter The Weekly Fruit). New Franzen Lore dropped. Maura Johnston reviews The Dare’s “Sex” EP’s “12 Joyless Minutes.” Nine more than usual amirite. Musk’s ElonJet meltdown happened because SpaceX failed to set up his plane’s privacy correctly. Lol. “Bear breaks into New England bakery, destroys 60 cupcakes and some coconut cake.” And Ezra Marcus reported out the divorces for Horses’ cat-murdering chefs story: “Though Johnson’s and Aghajanian’s stories directly conflict, what has emerged is a picture of a disturbing relationship, during which more than one cat inexplicably died.”

Today in Crabs: Crab multi-tool. Only $25!1 

Today’s Song: TUM, “DTF”

I feel like Music Intern Sam is making the Season 8 playlist a lot hornier than past seasons were, and I’m here for it. Tomorrow Intern Camille’s here for her graduation Tabs, and after that no one is here till June 5th. Thanks for reading, I love you!